Path 2

Path 2

FYI: Your Birth Control Might Not Work

June 4, 2012

Here’s some important info if you don’t want a kid: neither the transdermal patch, vaginal ring, nor pill are the best way to go about birth controllin’.

According to a recently released New England Journal of Medicine study, intrauterine devices(IUDs), under-the-skin implants, and Depo-Provera shots work better — they have a 1 percent failure rate, compared to the other methods’ 9 percent rate.

Before ringing up your gyno in a fit of panic — OK, we’re so not the only ones who read about this and flipped a shit — here are some more deets about these popular contraceptive choices.

Out of the 7486 study participants tracked for three years, 334 accidentally got pregnant. For women using the pill, patch, or ring, the failure rate was:

“4.55 per 100 participant-years, as compared with 0.27 among participants using long-acting reversible contraception…among participants who used pills, patch, or ring, those who were less than 21 years of age had a risk of unintended pregnancy that was almost twice as high as the risk among older participants. Rates of unintended pregnancy were similarly low among participants using DMPA injection and those using an IUD or implant, regardless of age.”

In other words, long-acting reversible contraception works way better.

One of the study’s author told the Times: “When women say to me that they want to use the pill, I say, ‘That’s fine, but it’s 20 times less effective than an IUD.'”

This news probably won’t make Big Pharma too happy, but hey: Maybe this will silence demands that we pay taxes on our “whore pills?”